In the past, a projector and an interactive whiteboard were used to create an interactive and collaborative meeting environment. Now, a single product, known as an interactive whiteboard projector (IWP) can make almost any wall, or even a tabletop, interactive. One such commercial product is the Epson BrightLink 455Wi interactive whiteboard projector.
Interactive whiteboard projectors can turn any surface into a collaborative interactive workspace. They function like an interactive whiteboard without a dedicated board—almost any surface can be utilized. An electronic whiteboard pen can be used as a mouse to draw, write and click. It can be used to draw and annotate on the visuals being presented.
The Epson BrightLink 455Wi projector plus pen combination integrates interactive functionality in one machine without the constraints or expense of a conventional interactive whiteboard and is compatible with Windows® Ink Tools to easily add annotations and more. Because it is an ultra-short throw distance projector, it can be mounted on any wall or ceiling to project a whiteboard surface image from a very short distance, thus eliminating or reducing shadowing of the person interacting with the whiteboard surface. Individuals interact with the whiteboard surface using an infrared pen, and the system software is platform independent so that the user can work with virtually any Web 2.0 application, digital media file, or eTextbook. The interactive software allows the user to draw on the screen, highlight areas, save annotations, and toggle between pen and mouse modes.
In reference to the present invention, the term “meeting” will be used in a general sense. A meeting could be, for example, in a corporate setting with various presenters showing Powerpoint slides, PDF files, Word documents, etc., or a classroom setting with a teacher presenting a lesson and the students interacting with the whiteboard screen to offer solutions to problems, or any other various presentation setting where videos, photos, or slides are shown.
In a typical corporate meeting, for example, users may generate many pages of drawing data that are cached on the interactive whiteboard projector (IWP). Additional data such as images, Powerpoint slides, PDF files, videos, Word documents, etc. may be uploaded by users to the IWP to be displayed or annotated. Once the meeting concludes, meeting participants need an easy, secure method for accessing data stored on IWP.
Various methods have been proposed for delivering meeting information to participants. Email is one example. The IWP can be configured over a network to have access to an enterprise email server. In this example, meeting participants email addresses are entered into the IWP and the IWP is programmed to send all meeting content to the list of email addresses through the enterprise email server. However, this mode of delivery has certain limitations. It requires IT staff to configure the projector and email server to allow access. The IWP must have access to a global email address list and each meeting participant's email address must be added to the meeting. For security, email contents must be encrypted and passwords provide through another channel such as a phone message. Users cannot interactively select specific content and ignore others, and the limited capacity of the typical email server may cause large attachments to be rejected.
Another possible method is the use of a USB key (a data storage device that includes flash memory with an integrated Universal Serial Bus (USB) interface). In this instance, the meeting leader places a USB key in the IWP and saves the meeting content to the key. A USB key is then physically given to each meeting participant to copy to their personal computers. However, this is a slow and cumbersome process, and some meeting participants may not have a laptop in the conference room, or their device, e.g. iPad® or smart phone, may not have a USB port. Many companies do not allow USB keys to be used within the corporation because of security concerns. Also, since the meeting content is just a list of files, users may have difficulty finding the specific items that they are most interested in saving.
Another solution for distributing the meeting content is to save it to a local file server. If the IWP has access to an enterprise file server, once the meeting is over, the meeting contents are saved to a directory on the file server. However, this requires the IT staff to configure the IWP and file server to allow access. For highest security, meeting content must be encrypted. This requires a password to be distributed. Many meetings involve members that are not in a predefined enterprise security group. This requires meeting files on an enterprise file server to be accessible to all, which is unacceptable if confidential items are discussed in the meeting. Further, the IWP firmware must have the capability of writing and reading data across a network using network disk protocols including a security model.
Lastly, a possible solution is to save to the meeting contents to the cloud (a web-based service). If the IWP has access to a service on the cloud such as Google Docs, once the meeting is over, the meeting contents are converted and uploaded to the cloud service. This solution also has many limitations. It requires the IT staff to configure the IWP and cloud service to allow access. The IWP would have to be programmed to understand network protocols and document formats supported by many different service providers. Many IT departments prohibit the use of such services due to security and internal document policies. Also, many services do not have the concept of groups so all meeting participants would need to have an account at the service provider, such as Google, in addition to their corporate email account.
Therefore, it would be desirable to have a way of distributing meeting content from the interactive whiteboard projector to meeting participants that would be secure but without the disadvantages of other solutions proposed above.